One of Ariel Sharon's strategic advisors has already started floating Disengagement: the Sequel.
If diplomacy continued to be futile, Israeli should consider making unilateral withdrawals a state policy, but should annex territories remaining in Israeli possession, Eyal Arad, strategic advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said.
Speaking at a Reut Insititute convention Tuesday night, Arad stressed, "The implications are severe: No more withdrawal followed by continued holding, but rather withdrawal followed by annexation of the territories not evacuated."
Arad noted that Israel may resort to this sort of strategy if formal peace talks with the Palestinians remain gridlocked. "If diplomacy continues to be fruitless, we may have to consider turning disengagement into a strategy of unilaterally defining Israel's permanent borders."
Of course, this isn't official government policy. Just an idea casually thrown out by a strategic advisor to the Prime Minister.
Sources in the prime minister's office responded that the advisor's words "represent solely Eyal Arad's opinion, and not that of Ariel Sharon, who believes that the one and only diplomatic policy is the road map."
Yet, sources close to Sharon admitted that Arad's suggestion was reasonable, and it was possible that Israel would need to execute a unilateral step to establish its permanent borders.
Priming the pump, as it were. Since it's quite probable that diplomacy will, indeed, continue to be futile, expect the "suggestion" to take on weight in the coming months.
Update (10/1/05): A Mr. Eytan Bentsur (a former director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, no less, under Bibi and Barak) has announced that Mr. Arad's suggestion was neither reasonable nor authoritative, that it was in fact "harmful" and "political" and, further, that Mr. Arad is not really one of Sharon's strategic advisors or even part of his inner circle. That's odd, because for years Mr. Arad has been referred to in the press as everything from Sharon's campaign manager to his public relations consultant, aide and media advisor -- Mr. Arad's controversial moonlighting notwithstanding.
